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In this message we shall continue to see God’s work in His new administrative arrangement, particularly in Christ’s ascension.
Ephesians 1:20-22 says, “Raising Him [Christ] from among the dead, and seating Him at His right hand in the heavenlies, far above all rule and authority and power and lordship, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in that which is coming.” God has not only raised Christ from among the dead but also has seated Christ “at His right hand in the heavenlies, far above all rule and authority and power and lordship, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in that which is coming” (Eph. 1:20b-21). God’s right hand, where Christ has been seated by the great power of God, is the most honorable place, the place with supreme authority. The “heavenlies” refers not only to the third heaven, the highest place in the universe, where God dwells, but also to the state and atmosphere of the heavens in which Christ was seated by God’s power. “Rule” refers to the highest office; “authority,” to every kind of official power; “power,” to the might of authority; and “lordship,” to the preeminence which power establishes. The authorities include not only the angelic, heavenly authorities, good or evil, but also the human, earthly ones.
Ephesians 1:22 goes on to say that God has subjected all things under Christ’s feet. To seat Christ far above all is one thing; to subject all things under Christ’s feet is another. The former is a matter of transcendency; the latter is a matter of the subjection of all things to Christ.
The last part of Ephesians 1:22 says, “And gave Him to be Head over all things to the church.” The headship of Christ over all things is a gift from God to Him. Through God’s great power Christ has received the headship in the universe. It does not mean that God gave Christ to the church as a gift; it means that God gave Christ a gift — the headship over all things. A great gift was given to Christ by God, and this gift is the headship over all things.
God’s giving Christ to be the Head over all things is to the church. The phrase “to the church” implies a transmission. What God gave Christ to be is to the church; it is transmitted to the church. The church shares it. Through the transmission that is to the church, the church shares with Christ in all His attainments and obtainments.
The word “to” in Ephesians 1:22 indicates God’s dispensing. In His work in the new dispensation God passed through death in the Son, condemned sin in the flesh, tore the veil, wiped out the handwriting in ordinances, stripped off the principalities and powers, raised up Christ from the dead, seated Christ in the heavens, subjected all things under His feet, and gave Him to be Head over all things to the church. Because the church is the issue of the ascended Christ, the church is free from sin, from the ordinances of the law, and from the rulers and authorities in the air. The church is organically united to the Head over all things. The church is now the place where God can dispense Himself into His people. The church is the organ that receives directly all of God’s dispensing.
Acts 2:36 speaks of God’s work in making Jesus both Lord and Christ: “Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made Him both Lord and Christ — this Jesus whom you crucified.” As God, the Lord was the Lord all the time (Luke 1:43; John 11:21; 20:28). But as man, He was made the Lord in His ascension after He brought His humanity into God in His resurrection.
God made Jesus the Lord, as the Lord of all (Acts 10:36), to possess all. God made Him the Lord to possess the whole universe, God’s chosen people, and all positive things, matters, and persons. God has made Christ the Lord not only of God’s chosen people but also of the angels and of all those who will be in the millennium and in the new heaven and new earth. This means that Christ has been made the Lord of the heavens, the earth, and of everything and everyone He has redeemed.
Acts 2:36 tells us that God has also made Jesus to be Christ. As God’s sent One and anointed One, Jesus was Christ from the time He was born (Luke 2:11; Matt. 1:16; John 1:41; Matt. 16:16). But as such a One He was also officially made the Christ of God in His ascension. God made Him to be the Christ to carry out His commission.
Acts 5:31 says, “This One God has exalted to His right hand as a Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.” God exalted the Man Jesus, rejected and killed by the Jewish leaders, as the highest leader, the Prince, the Ruler of the kings to rule over the world (Rev. 1:5; 19:16), and the Savior to save God’s chosen people. “Leader” is related to His authority, and “Savior” to His salvation. Because He has been exalted by God, Christ rules sovereignly over the earth with His authority so that the environment may be fit for God’s chosen people to receive His salvation (Acts 17:26-27; John 17:2). “To give repentance…and forgiveness of sins” to God’s chosen people requires Christ to be exalted as a ruling Leader and Savior. His sovereign ruling causes and leads God’s chosen people to repent, and His salvation based upon His redemption affords them forgiveness of sins.
Repentance is for forgiveness of sins (Mark 1:4). On God’s side, forgiveness of sins is based upon His redemption (Eph. 1:7). On man’s side, forgiveness of sins is through repentance. Now we need to repent and receive forgiveness. Repentance and forgiveness are two steps by which we are made ready to receive the dispensing of the Triune God so that we may be the church.
The goal of God’s work in the new dispensation is for His dispensing of Himself into us. God did all the things we have covered in this message for the goal of making everything ready and having His chosen people available for His dispensing. Dispensing is God’s unique goal. We all need to pray. “Lord, dispense Yourself into me. O Lord, infuse me with Yourself.” Our need today is to receive more and more of God’s dispensing.
Sin frustrates people from enjoying God’s dispensing. When God condemned sin in the flesh through the death of Christ in the flesh (Rom. 8:3), He dealt with this hindrance to His dispensing. When Christ was crucified, God also wiped out the handwriting in ordinances (Col. 2:14) and stripped off the rulers and authorities, making a display of them openly and triumphing over them in the cross (Col. 2:15). After this, God raised up Christ from the dead, seated Him in the heavens, subjected all things under His feet, and gave Him to be Head over all things to the church (Eph. 1:20-22). God has also made Jesus both Lord and Christ (Acts 2:36). Furthermore, He has exalted Jesus to be a Leader and Savior so that He may give His chosen people repentance and forgiveness of sins (Acts 5:31). Now we need to see that, in His work, God has made Christ the High Priest.
Hebrews 5:5 and 6 say, “Christ did not glorify Himself to become a High Priest, but He who said to Him, You are My Son, this day I have begotten You; as also in another place He says, You are a Priest forever according to the order of Melchisedec.” Verse 5 contains a quote from Psalm 2:7: “You are My Son, this day I have begotten You.” This refers to Christ’s resurrection (Acts 13:33), which qualified Him to be our High Priest. For Christ to be our High Priest, He had to partake of our humanity and enter with this humanity into resurrection. With His humanity He can sympathize with us and be merciful to us (Heb. 4:15; 2:17). In resurrection, with His divinity, He can do everything for us and be faithful to us (Heb. 7:24-25; 2:17).
The context of the quotation of Hebrews 5:6, from Psalm 110, refers to Christ in His ascension and enthronement (Psa. 110:1-4). Ascension and enthronement are further qualifications for Christ to be our High Priest (Heb. 7:26). Christ was not only raised up from the dead by God, but He also ascended to the height of the universe.
God has made Christ our High Priest according to the order of Melchisedec. The order of Melchisedec is higher than the order of Aaron. The order of Aaron was for the priesthood only in humanity, whereas the order of Melchisedec is for the priesthood in both humanity and divinity.
Melchisedec came forth to minister bread and wine to Abraham after Abraham had fought to rescue Lot. He is a type of Christ as God’s High Priest. Christ is now a priest according to the order of Melchisedec, and His work is to come to us, today’s Abrahams, with bread and wine. When we come to the table, we enjoy the bread and wine supplied by our High Priest, our Melchisedec. The bread and wine on the table signify the body and blood of Christ who, as the embodiment of God, has been processed so that He may be ministered into us. The bread and wine contain the elements of Christ in His death and resurrection, that are being dispensed into us. As today’s Abrahams, we enjoy the supply of our Melchisedec, a supply of the riches of Christ, that is for God’s dispensing of Himself into us.
According to the Bible, there are two orders of the priesthood — the order of Aaron and the order of Melchisedec. The order of Melchisedec came before that of Aaron. The Aaronic priesthood deals with sin on the negative side. The ministry of Melchisedec, on the contrary, is positive. Melchisedec did not appear to Abraham with an offering to take away sin; he came with bread and wine to nourish Abraham. As such a High Priest, Christ ministers to us Himself in the bread and wine, as the embodiment of the processed God for our nourishment.
The book of Hebrews reveals that although Christ has completed His redemptive work, He is very active as our High Priest, ministering Himself into us in the processed bread and wine for our daily supply. This is why God made Christ a High Priest not according to the order of Aaron but according to the order of Melchisedec. Today Christ is not the sacrifice-offering High Priest; He is the bread-and-wine-ministering High Priest. He has redeemed us with Himself in His humanity as the sacrifice on the earth, and now He feeds us with Himself in His divinity as the supply of life in the heavens. His priesthood according to the order of Melchisedec is for God’s original purpose of dispensing Himself into us to produce a corporate expression for Himself.
Acts 10:42 says, “He charged us to proclaim to the people and solemnly testify that this is the One who was designated by God to be the Judge of the living and the dead.” Christ has been designated, by God, the Judge of all mankind. He will judge both the living and the dead. At His coming back the resurrected Christ will be the Judge of the living before the millennium on His throne of glory (Matt. 25:31-46). This is related to His second coming (2 Tim. 4:1). Christ will also be the Judge of the dead after the millennium on the great white throne (Rev. 20:11-15). Thus, Romans 2:16 says, “God shall judge the secrets of men…by Jesus Christ.”
Acts 17:31 says, “Because He has set a day in which He is about to judge the inhabited earth in righteousness by a Man whom He has designated, having furnished proof to all by raising Him from among the dead.” God has designated Christ to judge the inhabited earth at a day set by Him. This refers to the day when Christ will judge the living on the throne of His glory before the millennium. Because on that day He will judge the inhabited earth, it should refer only to His judgment on the living. God has designated Him to execute this judgment because He is a Man (John 5:27), and God’s raising Him from among the dead is a strong proof of this.
God has given the authority of all judgment to Christ that all men may honor Him as they honor God (John 5:22-23), and He will judge according to the will of God (John 5:30). As the Son of God (John 5:25), He can give life (John 5:21), and as the Son of Man, He can execute judgment (John 5:27). He is one with the Father in the matter of enlivening, and He is also one with Him in the matter of judgment.
After God seated Christ in the heavens, made Him both Lord and Christ, exalted Him to be a Leader and a Savior, made Him the High Priest, and designated Him to be the Judge of the living and the dead, He poured out His Spirit upon His slaves. Concerning this, Acts 2:17 and 18 say, “It shall be in the last days, says God, that I will pour out of My Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams; and upon My slaves, both men and women, I will pour out of My Spirit in those days, and they shall prophesy.” The pouring out of the Spirit here differs from the breathing of the Spirit into the disciples out of the mouth of Christ on the day of His resurrection (John 20:22). The pouring out of God’s Spirit was from the heavens after Christ’s ascension. The former is the essential aspect of the Spirit breathed into the disciples as life for their living; the latter is the economical aspect of the Spirit poured out upon them as power for their work. The same Spirit is both within the believers essentially and upon them economically.
The poured-out Spirit is the consummation of the processed Triune God. The Triune God became incarnate, and then He lived on earth for thirty-three and a half years, after which He went to the cross and died an all-inclusive death to solve all problems. Then He was buried and raised up from the dead, entering into resurrection and becoming a life-giving Spirit. After His resurrection, He ascended to the heavens to be made Lord, Christ, Savior, Leader, High Priest, and Head of all things. After passing through such a process, He became the Spirit, and the Spirit is the consummation of the Triune God.
The Spirit poured out on the day of Pentecost was not merely the so-called Holy Spirit, as is commonly taught. Rather, according to the entire revelation of the Bible, this Spirit was the Triune God consummated, through the process of incarnation unto ascension, as the Spirit. Therefore, the Spirit poured out on the day of Pentecost was the consummation of the Triune God. When this Spirit was poured out, the processed Triune God was poured out, and this outpouring included the elements of incarnation, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, ascension, and descension.
The outpouring of the all-inclusive Spirit as the consummation of the processed Triune God is a great blessing to God’s chosen people. Now God’s people can receive in full the dispensing of this consummated God. From the day of Pentecost until now, God’s chosen people have been under this dispensing. We may be under such a divine dispensing day by day and even moment by moment. It is a great thing to be under this dispensing, which is the issue of God’s marvelous work in the New Testament.
This dispensing could not take place at the time of John the Baptist, or when Peter was traveling with the Lord Jesus. The reason the divine dispensing could not be experienced then was that the Triune God had not yet been consummated. But by the time Christ came to His disciples after His resurrection and told them to go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit (Matt. 28:19), the Triune God had been consummated. It certainly is good news, glad tidings, to hear that the Triune God has been consummated as the all-inclusive Spirit to dispense Himself into us.
God has poured out the all-inclusive Spirit as His consummation upon the whole Body of Christ including all of us. This outpouring is God dispensing Himself into His chosen people in a full way. Today we are under this outpouring, this dispensing. May we all see this vision that God has poured out the all-inclusive consummated Spirit and that we all are under this marvelous dispensing.
After God poured out the consummated Spirit upon the Body of Christ, He sent the resurrected Christ back to His chosen people. Acts 3:26 speaks of this: “To you first, God, having raised up His Servant, has sent Him to bless you in turning away each one of you from your wickedness.” God has sent back the resurrected and ascended Christ to the Jews first by pouring out His Spirit on the day of Pentecost. Hence, the very consummated Spirit God poured out is the Christ God raised and exalted to the heavens. When the apostles preached and ministered this Christ, the consummated Spirit was ministered to people.
At the time Peter spoke the word recorded in Acts 3:26, Christ as God’s Servant had ascended to the heavens and was still there. Nevertheless, Peter told the people that God had sent Christ to bless them. Actually, God has received Christ into the heavens. But here Peter says that God has sent this ascended One to the people. In what way did God send the ascended Christ to the Jews? God sent Him by pouring out the consummated Spirit. That was God’s way of sending the ascended Christ to the people. This implies that the outpoured Spirit is actually the ascended Christ Himself. When the outpoured Spirit came to the people, that was Christ, the ascended One, sent by God to them. From this we see that the poured-out Spirit is identical to the ascended Christ. In God’s economy for the experience of His people, the ascended Christ and the poured-out Spirit are one. In God’s economy Christ and the Spirit are one for the dispensing of the processed Triune God into us and for our enjoyment of this dispensing.
We have heard much that God will send Christ back in the future, at the time of the second advent. But according to Acts 3:26, God has already sent back the ascended Christ. First He was sent to the Jews and then to Gentiles throughout the world.
The first time Christ was sent by God He was sent in the flesh. After His ascension He was sent back by God as the Spirit. Christ today is the Spirit. When the all-inclusive Spirit was poured out on the day of Pentecost, that was God’s sending of Christ. The outpouring of the Spirit was the descension of Christ. In chapter two of Acts the Spirit was poured out, and Peter received this outpouring of the Spirit. Then in chapter three Peter says that God has sent Christ back to His people. God honored Christ, glorified Christ, and sent Him back. Even while Peter was speaking to the people, Christ was there. He was present not as the Christ in the flesh but as the pneumatic Christ, who is the Spirit. Therefore, as part of His work, God has sent the resurrected Christ to His chosen people as the Spirit.
